Sabres Skate To History; But It’s None Too Pleasing

With that 4-3 OT win, for the first time in franchise history, in consecutive games the Buffalo Sabres have won a game in which they trailed by 3 goals.  Last team that pulled off that little trick was the Stars back in 2006.  And you know, that’s great and everything, but doesn’t that mean they put themselves down three goals in the first place?  We can talk about their mettle and chutzpah all we want, but the trend of the Sabres getting absolutely outplayed in the early portions of hockey games is getting completely unacceptable.  Check out these stats from Harrington’s game report.

Atlanta had a 10-2 edge in shots on goal in the first period as Buffalo did nothing but Miller kept the game scoreless, including a save on an Ilya Kovalchuk breakaway. That’s 39-7 in shots for the opponents in the opening 20 minutes of the last three home games and 62-20 in the last five games overall.

Outshot 62-20 in the first period?  Remember when this team led the league in shots and shots against?  Those early season numbers have faded, fast.  They’ve fallen to 9th in shots per game (30.7) and plummeted to 23rd in shots against (31.4).

Is this a sign that slowly, but surely, that the defensive game that carried the Sabres during the first portion of the season is fading?  Certainly, it seems to me that Tyler Myers game continues to improve each night (see his pick pocketing of Afinogenov’s sick toe drag in the final minute last night, his leveling of Malkin behind the net the night before) but what of the others?

We’ll see soon enough.  With 4 games this week (including a Colorado game where I’ll be in attendance, making the trip from DC), we’ll see how strong willed these Sabres really are.